Writing the American Past: US History to 1877

Writing the American Past reproduces dozens of untranscribed, handwritten primary documents: diary entries from Massachusetts in the 1690s, a woman detailing the Great Awakening, an eighteenth–century treaty with Native Americans, a letter by a slave, all of which capture the essence of the American past and introduce students to the raw material of pre–1877 US history: the written document. Expertly introduced and edited by Mark M. Smith, this unique textbook offers students the rare opportunity to engage directly with original documents, teaching them how to transcribe, decipher, and interpret primary sources while providing a foundation and a template for understanding the American past.

Timeline vii Acknowledgments xi Editor’s Introduction: History, Handed Down 1 1 Old World Explores New: 7 Settling and Securing Newfoundland in the Early 1600s 2 The Chesapeake: 13 Indenturing Labor, 1694 3 Life in Seventeenth–century New England: 19 Massachusetts in the 1690s 4 The Middle Colonies: 25 A Philadelphia Furrier, 1738 5 The Lower South and Slave Society: 33 Slave Resistance and Imperial Contests, 1739 6 Social Order in the Eighteenth–century South: 39 Slavery and Virginia’s Gentry in the 1720s 7 The Great Awakening: 45 A Letter to George Whitefield, 1746 8 Empire and Native Americans: 51 The Treaty of Lancaster, 1744 9 Imperial Crises and the Coming of Revolution: 57 The Politicization of a Colonial Merchant, 1765 10 Fighting the Revolutionary War: 65 AWoman on the Homefront, 1776 11 Crisis, Constitution, Nation: 71 Probate Data and the Problem of Becoming American in the 1780s 12 The New Republic: 77 A Massachusetts Federalist in 1800 13 Jeffersonian America: 83 On the Road in 1818 14 Revolutions in Time and Space: 89 Tourism and Travel, 1850 15 The Age of Jackson: 95 The View from Abroad in 1828 16 The Southern Master Class: 103 An Elite Woman’s School Experience, 1838 17 Lives of the Enslaved: 111 Urban Slavery in 1862 18 The Modernizing North: 119 A Businessman’s Letter, 1836 19 The Age of Reform: 125 On the Need for Temperance, 1824 20 Westward Expansion: 133 Kansas and Free Labor in 1856 21 The Coming of the Civil War: 141 Bleeding in Kansas, 1856 22 Secession: 149 A South Carolinian Describes the Event, 1860 23 Americans in Civil War: 155 A Canadian Soldier’s Experience, 1864 24 Emancipation: 161 The Labor of Freedom, 1867

Mark M. Smith is Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He is the author or editor of a dozen previous books including the award–winning Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (1997) and he has served or currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Southern History , the Journal of Social History , the Journal of American History , and The Senses and Society .